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Everything posted by NickDB8

Are authors getting paid consistently now? Is it automated? Or are there still people waiting for payouts? In other words, would it be worth putting some of my stuff on the market, or is it still too sketchy?
Would love to hear from a current Evazon author.
Edit: Are they even still accepting new authors? I remember that stopped for a while.

"I have a black friend I can't be racist"
Seriously, can we stop engaging this thread? This thread has obv went from b8 to nonsense, no more productive discussion is being had, and, quite frankly, I'm tired of the notifications lol

I've largely left this thread alone, mostly because I can't tell if it's bait or not, but I would like to highlight some of seanarchy's points that I agree with, in case it isn't.
^ I can't stop you, but I do encourage you to consider the implications in publishing, of which seanarchy and I have both mentioned,
^ and this. I do not consent to having any views I express in this thread published outside of this site.

Oh boy.
Several issues with this stance / this is where I'm doing overview stuff
1) Your "policy research" isn't indicative of real policy making. Hate to break it to you, but Nate Cohen wrote an excellent post on the CEDA forums about why this style of debate is not only plain false, but also unethical. When we focus our research on hyperbolic apocalyptic scenarios, which are already unlikely and not how the real world works, that drowns out any claims regarding the ethics or social implications of a policy. This makes us ethically bankrupt through a deliberate disengagement from philosophical discussions. In a world of 100% "policy" debate, there would be no claims to ethics, then, as everyone would go straight for extinction impacts.
2) Debate as an activity has already become intertwined with critical thought. There is no way to discuss policies without discussing the social implications of them. What separates "policy" debate from "critical" debate? Are critiques not simply another negation of a policy? They're almost no different than DA+CP debate, except for content.
3) If critical debate has value, why should it be ignored? Maybe I fundamentally misunderstand your argument, but on one hand you seem to be saying that this style is ruining the activity, and on the other you seem to be saying it has value. If it has value, and we have reason to believe that it does, then it should be valued. In other words, if critical debate is educational or beneficial in any way, why shouldn't we embrace it?
Several solutions here.
1) Double down on going hard right. If you're going to say US leadership or democracy or [insert impact that teams criticize] is good, then you have to bite the link to the K. You will not win the link debate, period. You have to go for impact comparisons and framework arguments to make this debate winnable.
2) Don't go hard right. Taking a soft-left approach makes the link/perm debate a bit easier, but you have to be willing/able to defend the state as good.
3) Write blocks to answer their blocks. You read a framework argument in the 2AC, you know (roughly) what the neg block will say in response, so prepare answers to that in advance. "Blocks and pathos" don't win debates on their own, its how they are utilized, and they can be utilized by both teams.
You argue that pushing debaters into certain argumentative styles is bad, but
1) This contradicts the arguments you're making about kritiks being bad for debate, thereby entailing that all debaters must be policy-oriented.
2) Adaptation is good, even if that means "policy" debaters have to start making "critical" arguments (such as ontology first/not first, etc.).
Here's where you misunderstand the argument. The argument is not "oh you're some conservative who hates debate", the argument is rather that the same rhetoric you use to explain why critical debate is bad falls exactly in line with the rhetoric that neocons use to criticize the debate space and talk about the liberal takeover of academia. If you clicked any of the links I posted, you'll easily find someone saying "the topic is x, why are they discussing racism and not a policy? silly libs!" which is, in essence, the same argument you're making. Publishing a book about it suddenly empowers those same neocons by giving them a (relatively) qualified author to cite when criticizing debate for a focus on identity.
Then you must not understand what it means for others. NDT 2013, Emporia SW. Debate is a home. Your stance evicts the people who live there.
1) Not antithetical to the structure, policy vs kritik debates happen all the time and it is possible for either team to win those debates.
2) It doesn't silence policy debaters, there are solutions mentioned above.
3) Your stance silences critical debaters, even if you win silencing is bad you don't make it better, just scapegoat teams that read kritiks.
How do people take advantage? Calling out policies/rhetoric/resolutions/etc that have harmful social implications doesn't sound like "taking advantage", that sounds like bringing forward new discussions that challenge what we previously assumed. Even then, it's arguable that it's impossible for kritiks to give a team an "advantage", because there is no unbeatable argument. Every argument has a weakness, and that doesn't change with philosophy.

It doesn't. In fact, it allows us as individuals to have discussions about social issues regarding the plan, the topic, or debate as a whole.
After taking a look at your post history...
edit: RIP, spoiler box was only meant to hide screenshots for space. More text included in the box below the screenshots, although it was intended to be outside of it.
edit 2: another link as to why the right hates philosophy in the debate space - this one authored by a HS debater! (https://www.reddit.com/r/Conservative/comments/afrmjd/disqualified_in_a_high_school_debate_for_quoting/?ref=share&amp;ref_source=embed&amp;utm_content=body&amp;utm_medium=post_embed&amp;utm_name=4d4b9b62cb044823abe9c6c891a6a829&amp;utm_source=embedly&amp;utm_term=afrmjd)

Hot take:
What good are mod privileges if no one is around to use them? The biggest instance that I can think of was the M*nhood Ac*demy flaming of 2017ish(?). This consisted of one or more users, including me, repeatedly messaging @Snarf to ban the accounts the troll was creating. I suggested an IP ban to prevent the creation of more accounts, to which I am told that only David could issue such ban.
This site needs more mods. The few mods we have left aren't always the most active (heck, even Snarf's last visit was in November), which is understandable. After doing this for so many years, in a site with such little attention paid to it, I would probably start to slow down on it too. The majority of people I would like to see have a mod role have already left the site, and given the number of active users here, there isn't much to pick from anyway.

This definitely read like an ASPCA commercial.
For 32 cents a day, you can end the abuse that has happened in this debate. Donate now, and we'll include a free t shirt and a one month subscription to our magazine

The categorical imperative is a Kantian concept that boils down to "something is moral if it can become a universal law". If one imagines a world where everyone acts according to this law and said world is chaotic, then this law is immoral. In your example, Kant would find lying immoral because of the second reason; no one would trust each other (in regards to the first option, Kant might have a bone to pick with people claiming to know a truth/Truth, it's been a minute since my last intro to philosophy class lol). Consider the following argument:
Lying undermines trust
Society cannot exist without trust
Therefore, lying harms humanity as a whole
An easy way to answer these arguments is to find a utilitarian counterexample. In the instance of lying, the common counterexample goes as follows.
In other words, under the "law" that "one should not lie", you would be forced to out the location of your friend to the murderer, costing their life.
With this in mind, one can create these "universal laws" (or "maxims", to be technical) to easily avoid those kinds of arguments, however. For instance, "One should always lie to murders if it will save someone's life", which is still (arguably) ethical under the categorical imperative, while still avoiding any reasons why broad maxims are bad. This does, however, get into the ideas of perfect and imperfect duties.
I'm not sure what the context of the arguments you're making/responding to are, but this is the gist of it. Here's some stuff that may be of use, I consulted these while writing as well.
https://www.csus.edu/indiv/g/gaskilld/ethics/kantian ethics.htm
http://myweb.ecu.edu/mccartyr/GW/InquiringMurderer.asp

Bataille says a lot of things, but there are two main ways I've seen it run in debate.
First, is the stuff about productivity. Most people will read the Featherstone evidence that says something along the lines of "the will to productivity leads to environmental destruction, biopolitics, and militarization", along with a link argument that says that the 1AC is an investment in productivity or attempting to maximize utility. The alternative, at least from what I've seen, is a form of sacrificial, unproductive expenditure, such as reading poetry in the round because it is a break away from productivity. This is, of course, a simplification of the argument, however.
Second, there's the death stuff, which I am substantially less familiar with, so I won't try to explain it.
Further, there's a card floating around about being vs becoming, also a thing I do not understand, but that is fairly less common.
If you want some insight as to what these arguments look like evidence-wise, a search on the wiki from last year (or the China topic, even) for "Bataille" or "productivity".

Some other stuff that might be a good intro -
Warner - The Trouble With Normal
Stanley - Near Life, Queer Death
Mary Nardini Gang - Towards A Queerest Insurrection
The bottom two are short and should be relatively easy to find online; I've only read a hard copy of the Warner book, but it might be floating around

I think you can go for both in the 2AR as long as you have a "neoliberalism inevitable" argument somewhere in there - The 1AC likely isn't the one thing that will make-or-break neoliberalism, meaning that even if they try to concede the link turns and the impact turns, you still have the "neolib inev" arg to get you out of that

I heard of a cx against Baudrillard aff that was pretty much
"is meaning static?"
"of course not"
"so does that mean no means no?"
I always assumed this would be a better link, but I'm not a baudrillard debater

Somewhat related, I think a good dedev 2AC should have a few things. Keep in mind I'm only a 1A, and also not a dedev pro.
1) Economic growth is sustainable - This means that a collapse won't happen, which is why I think the best econ advantages aren't based on collapse, but rather stagnation; when the economic growth slows, that's bad, but it stays growing none the less
2) There is no "limit" to growth - Will likely get you out of some of the Trainer evidence, might resolve an internal link to an environment impact to dedev
3) Growth good (this is likely in the 1AC) - Self explanatory
4) Growth solves the impact to dedev - Also self explanatory
5) No mindset shift - Even post economic collapse, people will still pursue growth